Funology From Usability to Enjoyment

This book reflects the move in Human Computer Interaction studies from standard usability concerns towards a wider set of problems to do with fun, enjoyment, aesthetics and the experience of use.

Traditionally HCI has been concerned with work and task based applications but as digital technologies proliferate in the home fun becomes an important issue. There is an established body of knowledge and a range of techniques and methods for making products and interfaces usable, but far less is known about how to make them enjoyable.

Perhaps in the future there will be a body of knowledge and a set of techniques for assessing the pleasure of interaction that will be as thorough as those that currently assess usability. This book is a first step towards that. It brings together a range of researchers from academia and industry to provide answers. Contributors include Alan Dix, Jacob Nielsen and Mary Beth Rosson as well as a number of other researchers from academia and industry.

Theories and Concepts.- to Section 1.- Let’s Make Things Engaging.- The Engineering of Experience.- The Thing and I: Understanding the Relationship Between User and Product.- Making Sense of Experience.- Enjoyment: Lessons from Karasek.- Fun on the Phone: The Situated Experience of Recreational Telephone Conferences.- The Enchantments of Technology.- The Semantics of Fun: Differentiating Enjoyable Eeperiences.- Methods and Techniques.- User Empowerment and the Fun Factor.- to Section 2.- Measuring Emotion: Development and Application of an Instrument to Measure Emotional Responses to Products.- That’s Entertainment!.- Designing for Fun: User-Testing Case Studies.- Playing Games in the Emotional Space.- Deconstructing Experience: Pulling Crackers Apart.- Designing Engaging Experiences with Children and Artists.- Building Narrative Experiences for Children Through Real Time Media Manipulation: Pogo World.- Case Studies in Design.- to Section 3.- The Joy of Telephony: Designing Appealing Interactions.- From Usable to Enjoyable Information Displays.- Fun for All: Promoting Engagement and Paraticipation in Community Programming Projects.- Storytelling & Conversation to Improve the Fun Factor in Software Applications.- Deconstructing Ghosts.- Interfacing the Narrative Experience.- Whose Line is It Anyway? Enabling Creative Appropriation of Television.- The Interactive Installation ISH: In Search of Resonant Human Product Interaction.- Fun with Your Alarm Clock: Designing for Engaging Experiences Through Emotionally Rich Interaction.